Ein Teil von El Paso—A Part of El Paso

For this month’s round of interviews, I spoke with El Paso Community College's (EPCC) Biology Professor Gertrud Konings-Dudin on her languages and use of them in El Paso, Texas. As a native of France, Professor Konings-Dudin grew up in a multilingual community. Unbeknownst to many Americans, depending on where a person lives in France, citizens are often trilingual, quadrilingual, or more.

On Veterans’ Day, Monday, November 11, 2019, the orbit of the smallest planet of our solar system, Mercury, carried it between observers on Earth and the sun. This transit of Mercury, somewhat similar to an eclipse in that a large sphere passed between human viewers and the sun, slightly reducing the amount of light that reached our planet, is a rare event that was first intentionally observed in response to a scientific prediction in November 1631. Humans will not observe another transit of Mercury until 2032.

In London in 1597, a book of Sir Francis Bacon was published entitled The Essays. The book, 340 pages long was received well in England and later translated into French and Italian during his lifetime.

Introduction

Millions of readers love fantastical literature. Like those fans, I enjoy imagining supernatural beings who wield their powers to destroy or save the day.  Dragons, especially, fascinate me.

This semester, Mellon Undergraduate Research Fellows Siera Tanabe from The University of Texas at El Paso and Jonathan Hinojos and Solomon Contreras from El Paso Community College and I are initiating a new podcast series made possible by The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP, La Frontera Speaks, which will focus on sharing contemporary and historic personal accounts of our border.